Booming High Street stores are celebrating their most successful sales in three years, a new report has revealed.

In the CBI Distributive Survey, retailers said the tills had been ringing with more than half recording better January sales than last year.

Mike Horton, promotions manager at the Eastgate Centre in Basildon, said huge numbers had come through the doors this month according to the centres Footfall system, which uses CCTV to count shoppers.

He said: "Trade is actually buoyant and we are pleased. We have certainly noticed we have been a lot busier than last year, with 6.8 per cent more people visiting us than during the same period last year."

One of the sectors highlighted in the report was footwear sales, which two thirds of retailers said had achieved better sales than last year.

However, Paula Malone, who owns the Hello Toes shoe shop in the Eastgate shopping centre, said it had not been a good month.

She added: "It has been diabolical, it has been very poor, very quiet, but January is always a quiet month anyway."

Victoria Plaza, in Southend, did not share in the sales boom either, due to the ongoing £27 million refurbishment.

Bill Harkness, managing director of Delamare Estates, which owns the centre, said: "You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. We have basically allowed for last year to do the refurbishment with a view to finishing it this year so all the benefits will begin to flow through.

"We want 2007 to be a really good year and a tip top year in 2008 if the regeneration is not badly affected by the new shopping centre planned for the outskirts of town, which is a bad move we feel."

He added the centre would begin to see an upturn in sales when the Deeping underpass is reopened.

The undercover link between the station and the plaza will also be started next week, which will improve access for shoppers.